


Someone's in the Kitchen with Angie

by innie



Category: Single Parents (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21740563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Angie has a secret . . . recipe.
Relationships: Angie D'Amato & Douglas Fogerty, Angie D'Amato & Graham D'Amato, Poppy Banks & Angie D'Amato, Will Cooper & Sophie Cooper, Will Cooper/Angie D'Amato
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Someone's in the Kitchen with Angie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/gifts).



> I saw [this map](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/609816/most-popular-christmas-cookie-each-state) and it all went downhill from there.

"Douglas!" was what Douglas Fogerty, DDS, heard when he got home, and the pitch alone was enough to make him — and everyone in a two-block radius — aware that it was not his girlfriend's dulcet tones screaming his name in ecstasy, but rather the short Italian dame who'd foisted herself and her son into his sauna. It was even less hygienic than it sounded.

Before he could even summon up the strength to answer her or, more importantly, get himself a bourbon, there she was, in the foyer, crowding him like she was an off-brand Magic Johnson. How had he been bamboozled into this caring and sharing nonsense anyway?

"Where the fudge does 'Tony' shop?" she demanded, like this was an issue worthy of her getting up in his face (or, really, up to his waist).

"First of all," he said, "his name really is Tony, so you don't need to use the air-quotes. Second, he has never once neglected to buy something on the list. Did you use the master list, or just imagine you told him what you wanted?"

She looked so offended that he had to remind himself that that exact scenario had played out already. Twice, even.

"Second, he shops, as requested, at Whole Foods."

Her face was doing that irritating beaming thing she did when she thought she was being funny. "'Whole Foods'? 'Whole _Paycheck_ ', more like. Yeah, I got a million of 'em," she said, which he couldn't help feeling was ominous in the extreme. She obviously couldn't read facial cues, because she just kept rambling on. "'Neiman Marcus,' or is it 'Needless Markup'? Huh?" She actually held up a hand no bigger than a child's for him to high-five. Right, like he was going to congratulate her for a supposed witticism she probably stole from a "blog" or open himself up to battery charges if he smacked that tiny palm. Her face fell along with her forlorn hand. "Okay, I got two."

"So you're done?" he inquired, more for something to say than out of genuine hope.

"No, Douglas," she said witheringly, as if the length of this conversation had more to do with his inability to follow her train of thought than her squirrel-like chasing of every possible tangent. "I put _peanut butter cookies_ on the list — on Tony's _master list_ — and he bought me the ingredients to make them! Who does he think I am, Chef Boyardee? I need the peanut butter cookies, you know, the cheap ones that come in that purple package. Not that you even have the right microwave, ugh."

He was not going to inquire about why she needed a microwave for store-bought cookies that even she recognized as cheap. "I have a twenty-six hundred dollar convection oven. It does not play a jaunty tune when it has heated your hobo food."

"I neeeed the microwave to get the cookies just soft enough to shove Hershey's Kisses into them. You know, to make Peanut Butter Blossoms. Bonus, the whole house smells like warm peanut butter cookies so Graham thinks I really baked them." If Graham was naive enough to think his mother capable of making anything from scratch, the kid needed serious survival skills. Boot camp might do the trick, or a couple of hours with the twins. 

Angie looked up at him, backed away, and then took a running leap, locking eyes with him at the peak of her arc. Her hang-time was frankly mesmerizing. "You can never tell him I don't make them from scratch. Swear." She fell back to the floor of the foyer with a thud, and the spell was broken. He turned away to pour himself a drink.

*

"What's all this I hear about Christmas cookies?" Will asked, opening the door to her and confirming his complete lack of a sense of shame. That apron should not be worn by a man who wanted to get laid ever again. Though that beard — hadn't his face been basically naked, like, _yesterday_? — was kind of offsetting it. "Or, I guess, really, _festive treats_ is the term, because I can't say no to rugelach. And it's hard to beat a good Russian tea cake, ooh, or snickerdoodles, or —"

"Will," she interrupted before he could keep going and get her even hungrier, "you have a microwave, right?" He nodded, looking kind of adorably bewildered.

"What does it look like?" she pleaded, hoping against hope.

"Um, it's shiny," he said. "Do you want to come in, or is this more of a door-to-door survey?"

"Okay," she said, stepping in and shutting the door behind her so she had something to lean on that wasn't him. He'd give her one of his really good sympathetic hugs and she'd get off-track and Graham wouldn't have his Peanut Butter Blossoms to lay out for Santa. And also Will had a girlfriend and Poppy had really strict rules about how to behave in that scenario. "Here's the deal. Graham loves my world-famous Peanut Butter Blossoms, okay, but they're a huge lie. I just buy those peanut butter cookies, August and After —"

"In the purple package!" he said, and at least _he_ knew when a moment called for a high-five, unlike _Douglas_. "Wait, what's a Peanut Butter Blossom?" She was seriously considering revoking that high-five.

"What do you _mean_ , what's a Peanut Butter Blossom? It is only the greatest cookie of all time!"

"Negatory," he said, smiling his domestic-goddess smile. "That would be my Hugs and Kisses. Sophie loves them so much she actually went to the trophy store and got a special trophy made for me. She is my muse, and they are my art."

"Okay, you are being super weird right now, and all I need is for your microwave to be identical to mine," she said, brushing past him to get to his kitchen, which was normally spotless but now had all of his baking ingredients out, shaming her like he'd entered a secret pact with Tony. No — she had to be fair; Will would _never_ team up with the man who'd been his mortal enemy since Thanksgiving. "This kitchen looks like it was abandoned by the Keebler elves a hot second ago."

"I wish!" he said. "So, does the microwave suit, milady?"

She looked and felt a wave of disappointment crash over her. "It's not the same," she said. "And I needed it to be because on mine, I'd marked exactly where to turn the knob so that the cookies came out just exactly soft enough every time." That fire had ruined everything.

"If your microwave was old enough that it had a _knob_ , it was probably time to replace it anyway. And I'm sure we can whip up some just-soft-enough cookies."

"No, these were still kind of hard on the bottom but the tops got soft enough to shove Hershey's Kisses into them —"

"You're making Hugs and Kisses!" Will said, looking ecstatic.

"They're called _Peanut Butter Blossoms_."

"Says who?"

"Betty Frickin' Crocker!"

"Oh, you know her personally?"

She was on the cusp of just yelling _YES_ when she decided that dignity was a good thing. "They are known across the country — and at the North Pole — as Peanut. Butter. Blossoms."

"That name has no logical foundation! What are these cookies supposed to be blossoming into?" She made a face because she hadn't heard that phrase since Health Class, right as puberty tore a swath through her sixth-grade class. "They are Hugs — because the peanut butter base is round, like an O that symbolizes a hug — and Kisses — because there is a Hershey's Kiss in each one. And that is what they are called in this house!"

"'Hugs and Kisses,'" she scoffed, getting the air-quotes goddamn right and aware she was grinning hugely. Stupid Will, who made all sorts of sense when he really shouldn't. Arguing with him about stupid shit was one of the best parts of her day. "Why do you have to bring emotions into everything?"

Only he wasn't playing along. "Um, Ange? You do know that hugs and kisses aren't feelings, right?"

"Maybe you're not doing them right," she challenged.

She was not expecting him to step into her space and, without giving her a moment to think or breathe or panic, kiss her softly. He made it last, long enough that her arms got loose enough to wind around his neck and bring him in even closer. He tasted like cinnamon and . . . was that orange? . . . and he was really good at this kissing business.

As his girlfriend probably knew.

She dropped her arms and pushed at his chest. He went, giving her a look that had not even a speck of regret in it. "Tracy dumped me last night," he said, "and she said something really weird. She said she was sick and tired of waiting for me to dump her, and when I asked why, she said something about a secret." He was pulling out all the guilt-trip classics to get her to spill, but she wasn't falling for that, not when the truth would hurt him so badly.

"I was drunk when she told me, and I can't remember it now," she said, launching forward into his arms. He was so warm and comfortable, and it was easier to lie when she didn't have to look him in the face; his neck was far less judgmental.

"Hey," he said, his voice a rumble in his chest that made her cheek tingle. "Was the secret that, however great she was, she wasn't you?"

"Dunno," she said, feeling all warm inside. "Can't remember."

"That's not a secret; everybody knows that." He gave her an extra squeeze.

She squeezed back. "Just like everybody knows that they're called Peanut Butter Blossoms! C'mon, they're Santa's faves too, and Graham leaves them out on the plate with his handprint baked into it so Santa can check his fingerprints against the Naughty or Nice List." She could feel him laughing. "What? It's pretty smart, I think."

"Well, if they're Santa's favorites, and Sophie's favorites —"

"And mine," she admitted, snuggling into him.

"— and yours, then we should definitely make them."

"Right now?" she asked.

"What, you got something better to do?" he asked, gesturing at the counter where flour and peanut butter stood side by side.

"You could say that," she said, and drew him down again for another kiss. She was getting to the goodies under that apron no matter how long it took.

(Spoiler: not long at all. Will was easier than microwave Peanut Butter Blossoms.)


End file.
